ynquirer

“Jah” is not “Yahweh” but an abbreviation that may be interpreted as the name of the Lord, though it is not the name of the Lord and may accordingly be interpreted otherwise. Giving someone the name “Ahijah” or even “Ahijahu” suggests that the name is “brother of Yahweh” without saying that exactly.

No Jew might either give another one or accept from others the full name or title – no abbreviations – of “brother of the Lord” without incurring in blasphemy.

BTW, Josephus tells that James, of whom the writer dares not even say “called the brother of the Lord,” but “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ” instead, was stoned, which was the standard punishment for blasphemy according to the Jewish Law.

Toto

Do you have a source for this assertion or an alternate meaning for the name? Ahijah is a common name in the Hebrew Scriptures and "Brother of God" is a commonly ascribed meaning.

Josephus gives no indication that James was charged with blasphemy. But James was probably the brother of another Jesus mentioned there.

Solo

I am not sure how you are connecting James the Zebedee, a witness of the Transfiguration and James the Just. The traditional view is that these were two distinct characters.

On the other hand, what if the original Mark was not intended for "the orthodox" reading ? It may be a tale relating to the early church where the two traditions of "Jesus" went toe-to-toe, the Jerusalem church's Jesus tradition perceived as false idolatry and betrayal of (the historical) Jesus by the Pauline Christians in the generation after Paul. In that scenario the Transfiguration symbolizes the resurrectional experience of those "in Christ" i.e. the Pauline readers of the gospels initiated into the mystery. It is contrasted with the incomprehension of the inner Jesus circle of the experience. Mark's Transfiguration narrative has a sort of Moebius twist to it; it is is an inner state of Jesus (the Maslowian "peak" ecstasy) observed on the outside by people who do not have access to it, and therefore do not comprehend it. Jesus tells Peter, John and James to keep the vision to themselves until after the son of man has risen from the dead. They question what rising from the dead means, by which Mark may want to say they did not have the vision of Jesus as Christ divinely transfigured (as received by Paul and his mystics), as per Mk 4:12

It could be that James the Just adopted Jesus post mortem as martyr of the last days and used the Jesus witnesses - the so-called pillars Cephas/Peter, and the Zebedees - to further his aims vis-a-vis the temple hierarchy. James' church evidently existed prior to Jesus crucifixion if one accepts the timeline of the gospels vis-a-vis the traditional dating of Paul's career.

I believe that Paul was unique among the original Jesus-idolizing groups in preaching Jesus as a divine Messiah. It appears to be a highly original compromise between, on the one hand, his intellect which told him there was going to be no messiah on earth, therefore messianism was a sectarian Jewish nonsense, and on the other hand, his complex inner experiences relating to temporal lobe issues (likely to earn today a diagnosis of TLD, TLE or a bi-polar disorder with TL complex partial seizures) which absolutely convinced him he was sent on a mission by God (as Maccoby thought was the case with Jesus), who revealed him ideas of cosmic importance to be shared with the elect at the end of time. The latter of course drove him toward messianic apocalyptic congregations, which he had previously (before his medical problems became manifest) disdained and perhaps actively persecuted.

Jiri

aa5874

So, the real question then is how did this mythical Jesus have a actual physical brother called James?

Paul appeared not be interested in a physical Jesus, he went to Arabia after his mythical conversion.

Galations 1.15-17 But in Acts, the author gave a different version of Paul's activities with respect to the mythical Jesus.

Acts 9.19-20 Both in Acts and Galations, Paul claims Jesus is the Son of God, that he ROSE from the dead, and that he had revelations from this mythical Jesus, yet there is a serious problem, both the author of Acts and the author called Paul did NOT AGREE with the PHYSICAL LOCATION of Saul/Paul after his miraculous conversion.

The author called Paul claimed he immediately went to Arabia, the author of Acts claimed Saul/Paul straightway preached in Damascus after he received his sight.

The authors of the NT have a lot of problems with REALITY, they have problems with the physical world.

How can a physical real human James have a brother that is mythical, that was conceived by the Holy Ghost, that Paul claimed ROSE from the dead and is coming back a second time for the dead in Christ?

I think James may have been DELUSIONAL too, if he ever lived. The authors of the NT appear to have a lot of problems with the PHYSICAL world.

If Jesus was just PHYSICAL, the authors of the NT do indeed have SERIOUS problems, we have a real James-Paul controversy.

ynquirer

‘Jah’ or ‘Yahh’ (Strong 3050) is a contraction for ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Yhovah’ (3068).

In Ex 19:13 Yahweh quite distinctively states that any visible attempt of approaching Him by the children of Israel will be punished with stoning.

If you say so.

bacht

It is ironic when you think of the millions of middle-class Christians in church every Sunday listening to the words of borderline personalities who would likely be in institutions or homeless today.

aa5874

But what is even more alarming, is that there may be scholars would who do not realise this.

Galations 1.19 has virtually destroyed the NT's credibilty.

The mental state of all the authors of the NT MUST be reviewed, including James.

bacht

I think scholars would agree that there is a tendency to extremism in the apocalyptic literature, continuing on from the earlier "Day of the Lord" doomsayers. The kind of mind that creates a Revelation might be classified as unstable by modern standards.

Actually the epistle of James is one of the most down-to-earth pieces in the NT, but there is still the eschatological underpinning ("the coming of the Lord is at hand").

It's kind of like Taylor's vision of Xanadu while under the influence of opium - fun to read but not especially practical is it?

aa5874

But, do you realise that is it believed that the epistle called James was written by James after he was dead. According to Eusebius in Church History, James the brother of the Lord, was stoned and then clubbed to death sometime around 66 CE, however some scholars have deduced that the Epistle called James was written no earlier than 70 CE.

James may have done like his brother, he may have ROSE from the dead and wrote his epistle. He may have comeback a second time.

Doug Shaver

Nonsense. Nobody believes that.

Apparently, that is what Eusebius believed.

Yes, some scholars believe that. Other scholars think those scholars are mistaken.

But you don't really think that is what happened, do you?

Guess what? Nobody else thinks it happened, either.

The scholars who think the epistle was written after James died believe that James was not the real author of that epistle.

The scholars who think James really wrote that epistle believe that he wrote it before he died. These are the scholars who think the other scholars are mistaken when they say the epistle was written sometime after 70 CE.

Is that really so hard for you to figure out?